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Saturday, August 02, 2008

Breaking Dawn Review

I really hope not to ruin any one's experience with Breaking Down. I'm going to try to be as fair to Stephenie Meyer as possible, and I'm going to try not to spoil it for anyone--as far as spoilers go.

I had taken the kids to the pool in the afternoon, and by the time we got back home at about 6:30, I was totally exhausted already. So were the kids. My wonderful neighbor B. was watching Gorgeous, El Cangri, and Chubbers, and I left towards Barnes and Noble with my friend A. and Swan. B&N was a zoo. There were die hard Twilighters all mixed up with Goth guys who just took the advantage to dress as vampires. The majority of the girls and women present had T-Shirts supporting mostly Edward. It was so much fun to see everyone having so much fun!There even was a guy dressed up as Edward who looked eerily like Robert Pattison. Jacob was well represented too. Somebody had taken one of those wolf dogs, which wasn't as dark as my Jacob (the one I picture in my mind), but was pretty cool all the same. Some people had T-shirts about Jacob too, but those made me sad. They mostly said, "I Hate You Jacob Black! The store had a lot of activities (face painting, future telling, trivia, etc) but the lines were outrageously long. Swan and A. had a lemonade (B&N had run-out of the strawberry shake was Edward's signature drink of the night), and I grabbed a water. At 11:00 they had everyone vacate the store, and make the lines outside. We headed to Wal-Mart where even though they did have a line, it wasn't bad at all. They had everyone picking up the book at customer service, and then just pay at one of the registers. We were pretty close the the front of the line, number 50 I would say, and had to wait by the men's underwear section! How we all laughed about that! We had to wait less than 1 hour, and I got M&M's. I loved that part about waiting, talking about the other girls in line, like we were friends or something. Twilight united us I guess. Wal-Mart didn't have a huge party like B&N did, but they had free cupcakes, and also passed out BD buttons and stickers. I was thrilled with mine!Midnight finally struck, and the lines moved very quickly. By 12:10 I had my book, plus a copy for Cristina, who was number 1 million over at B&N, and who arrived at WM a few minutes after 12:15 to get her book.We arrived home, all excited and hyper, and luckily my 2 babies were asleep over at our neighbor's. They stayed asleep, and my two older lovies fell asleep right away. I read until 7 with a couple of interruptions. My emotions ranged from delight, to unbelief, to outrage, to relief, to I don't know what for the next hours. I finished the book, and I'm proud to report that I didn't flip to the last page. At the end I was delighted that there was a character with my nephew's name, Nahuel! How unlikely is it that his name would be recognized all over the world now! (It's pronounced Na-oo-EL). I was a little disappointed with the book, and I was trying to tell Gorgeous a little of how I felt. When I told him I hadn't like it, he asked, "What did you expect mom?", and that opened my eyes. Of course, how was Stephenie Meyer going to create a happy ending that everyone liked? It's impossible. Still, I feel the same as with HP 5, a little empty after waiting for so long! I think it was the name that put me off, Ranesmee, Come on Steph! I hated it, even more the nickname, Nessie, but oh well. The love story still as beautiful, even though I can't picture Edward as a 17 year old anymore, and Charlie's reaction? So out of everything! I didn't like that part.But I'm happy about Jacob, even though I feel his imprinting with that person wasn't really necessary. Some people are shocked about it, butSpoiler

in how many stories is the vampire in love with a descendant of his first love? Yes, a lot. And even though it wasn't the vampire to do this, it was still a mythical character who did it, right?

BD is total fiction, and it's about vampires. I think SM was very classy with the way she wrote about the honeymoon. Steamy and thought provoking (in every sense of the word) without turning into a too revealing thing. Edward's reaction after he gets his news is totally understandable. He loves Bella above anything and everything; it's obvious he'll want to protect her even from someone they also loved but who was hurting her.The affair with the Volturi was handled well too. No unnecessary deaths.The best part? How a lot of people started liking Jake more. What I don't like is what others are complaining about, "It's not fair Bella got everything she wanted!" Come on! Are you really so hateful? Who wouldn't want the heroin to have everything she wanted. If a fictional character can't, then who?

after all this analyzing I realized that I liked it more than I thought at first. I'm tired and my kids are being so horrible today! Talk about precocious babies! Mine knows she can get away with anything today, and boy is she taking advantage of that!

We missed the parade today, but we'll see the fireworks tonight, and I still have the baby shower. No, I just keep glancing the clock to decide when it's appropriate to have the kids take a nap so I can sleep too.

I can't wait for the girls to finish reading it so we can talk about it! Please hurry up, and if you want, share your thoughts about the book.I want to read it slowly now, and really know what to think about it.

All the books

Men's underwear section

Dressed up as Edward. The guy looked better in person!

Jacob as a wolf

Swan as a monster. I think she was a little scared of the people with red eyes. Seriously!

5 comments:

Hello there. First of all, I'd like to say that yes, I am a big fan of the Twilight series. I'm not obsessed with it but I like it well enough.

Breaking Dawn was...it was so different. It was too different to even really fit into the Twilight Sage many of us had learned to love. If the first part of the series had held that sort of atmosphere, the same sort of deeply magical, passionate, controlled atmosphere that you got from Breaking Dawn, perhaps I would've liked it better.But like I said, it was too different for my tastes.

The wedding was amazing. It was the only part of the book that I felt comfortable in, like, "Okay, I know this atmosphere, I know how the narrator feels. I know how Bella feels, how she might react." For her to change so quickly after finding out the little "nudger" (moment of silence, please to actually acknowledge the fact that she called it a "nudger"; yet Edward can't call the baby an "it"?) was inside her, she went completely against her morals to make Edward happy and become 100% self-absorbed. Feel free to disagree. :) But, I should've known she would end up like this. Look what she did to Jacob, clinging to him though she knew it was bad for him, because she needed him. She's selfish. That's all there is to it.

Reading a part of your blog where you say that Stephenie can't make an ending that everyone loved, I totally understand that. There's no way you can please each and every Twilight fan the world has ever known. But can you agree with me that it was hard to digest a few of the things she put in there?

Bella and Edward's daughter was hard enough to process (what with that awful name and everyone praising her like a goddess) and then the Jacob imprinting? I was disgusted for the rest of the book. I tried to keep an open mind, tried to think clearly of the relationship between Quil and Claire and failed. What, is Jacob settling for second best? Is that how Stephenie thinks he should get his happy ending? He couldn't have Bella so why not go for her human-vampire daughter? Better than nothing, right?

For the longest time I felt Jacob was immature and needed to grow up and face reality but I would never wish that upon him. Imagine the...the actual relationship between Bella, Edward and Jacob in the future. Edward, who used to be Jacob's rival, was now his father and Bella, who was once Jacob's love-of-his-life was now his mother. And then "Nessie" getting all the attention and Rosalie and...there's just so much to process.

You're review was wonderful and I'm glad you liked it. I guess I need one of my own friends to finish reading their books so we can playfully rip each other's head off in a debate. ~Leanne

Leanne,Thanks so much for your comment. And I totally agree! The problem was that the characters just felt so different from what they were in the other books, and that the level of weirdness reached unbearable proportions. I've just started re-reading it, to see what I've missed the first time I read it though. Can't wait for book club this month. The arguments will get violent!

Ok, I am finally done with BD! Not so much of an "I can't put it down" as in a "I have to finish it so see how it ends". I did enjoy it for the most part. It was definitely a little weirder.

I am one of the few that would have chosen Jacob over Edward but once they were married then I couldn't feel that way anymore, it was a done deal. I was hoping that SM would let us fall in love with Leah and have that be the path Jake went. I don't care so much that he imprinted on an infant but I wish it wasn't Bella's daughter. To me that is weird. Kinda like a Mrs. Robinson moment. I know Yamile you said that most vampires do end up with a descendant, which would be better if it wasn't so close. I could understand better if there were a couple of more generations in between.

Also, I know this may seem a little mean but you have to know how much I loved Jacob. I wanted Bella to feel a little bit of what she asked Jake to endure, when he made another choice besides her.

Some good points....I really loved Edward and Bella together in the first book and then again in BD. I enjoyed getting to know her as a vampire. I always wanted to know what her special gift would be. It was good in the fact that everything wrapped up happy even if it was a little weirder than I would have liked. (I did not like he daughter's name either!! It didn't roll right together and Nessie?! Bella's first impression was right, Loch Ness Monster!)

All in all, just slightly disappointed that it wasn't as engrossing as the other books were to me, but I would still recommend to read it.

So I actually really liked the book (in the end). I was glad I was forced to read it slower than I would have like because we were in NYC this weekend. It allowed me to be ok with the whole pregnancy thing, and Jacob imprinting (ok in that this isn't the real world, so SM can make what ever she wants be "normal")!

I was able to think about it before reading on. After all, this book is about Vampires, and I was able to (after a while) be ok with the fact that some of them do hunt humans. So why not be ok, and happy that Jacob found his true love?! So the one part that I hated and was hard to get through was Book II. It was kind of long, and though I loved getting to know Jacob better, it felt like a totally different book without Bella narrating. I was so excited when I finally got to Book III and saw that it would finish from Bella's eyes. I just loved the fact that everyone in the book were able to forget about their differences and come together for what was right.

I felt like Bella grew up so fast once she was a vampire. She seemed immediately to be the same age as Edward. Which I thought made their relationship even better.

It was kind of a stretch with Jacob imprinting, but it made sense that he had found his companion, and made sense of why Bella was so drawn to him when she was pregnant. I didn't really like that part, since she was married. It is all weird, if you think about it, but they don't live in our world. The idea of Jacob imprinting should be just as strange as the idea of humans turning into wolves and vampires! You just have to realize it isn't the real world that they live in.

All in all I really did like the book, and I am glad that it all turned out good.

I saw SM in an interview and she said that she didn't write the book worried about what other people would think. She wrote it the way it was supposed to end, and she knew there would be some that wouldn't like it, but it was the way it was supposed to be. I can't wait to re-read all 4 books in a couple of years when I forget some of the details.

About Me

Repped by Linda Camacho, at the Prospect Agency. I'm a mother of five wise souls, married to my best friend Jeff. I write and read and listen to music. And I drive my children to their many social obligations that are a lot more than mine.
Contact me at yamile.s.mendez@gmail.com